Editor: This letter is in response to recent coverage in your newspaper, as well as letters to the editor, about Swedish's recently announced redevelopment plans for the Ballard campus. We know there is a great deal of interest about the changes being considered and want to take this opportunity to share our plans with the community.

First, let me clarify one very important point. While it's true that we are creating a new vision for the Ballard campus, Swedish will remain Ballard's community hospital, with both inpatient and outpatient services and a full-service emergency department. We are not turning the hospital into a clinic, and we have no plans to close it. We are open and will remain open. The Ballard campus is an important facility for the community and for Swedish.

Our vision for Swedish/Ballard is to provide, in the local community, those services that are most likely to be used locally and those that - through our research -- the community has told us they are most likely to use. Those include emergency services, obstetrics, surgery and various outpatient services.

The number of people using hospital services is declining nationally - just as it is in Ballard. As we see in community hospitals all over the country, there simply is not enough inpatient business in the Ballard community to sustain the hospital in its current capacity with the services we have traditionally provided. This decline is largely due to clinical developments and new technologies and treatments, which means there is so much more that can be done on an outpatient basis. Swedish, as with other medical centers - both locally and nationally - is not immune to these changes.

As the way in which health care is delivered in this country changes, so too must our facilities and delivery systems change. That is why we have already made significant changes at our downtown Seattle locations, and why we are proposing changes to our Ballard campus.

To date, the only service we have announced that will no longer be offered at the Ballard campus is skilled nursing care provided in our Transitional Care Unit. That service is provided as effectively and more efficiently through other facilities in the community. Swedish is currently working with what we consider to be the "top 25" of those facilities to make sure that our patients, who need that care, get it.

It is also our intention to no longer offer a traditional Intensive Care Unit (ICU) at Swedish/Ballard, although a final decision on that has not yet been made. Because ICU services are duplicated elsewhere in the Swedish system, our proposal is to offer a lower-level intensity unit that can care for patients hospitalized for a wide range of conditions and procedures from pneumonias to gynecological surgery. Research tells us that people needing ICU-level services benefit from being at a facility with a higher volume of patients.

The few patients who require extended periods of intensive care will be evaluated and stabilized, then transferred to appropriate facilities to continue their care. We are working closely with our physicians to define both the level and duration of care, which ensures the highest level of safety and quality for their patients.

As a nonprofit health-care provider, Swedish has an obligation to ensure the viability of the Ballard campus in order to continue meeting the health-care needs of this community. The changes being considered will allow us to continue to provide a wide range of health-care services to the Ballard community, while ensuring that the hospital remains a viable enterprise.

As we continue to study and develop the future of the Ballard campus, we want to be clear that we look forward to many more years of providing quality health care for the Ballard community.

Marcel Loh

Chief Operating Officer and Executive Sponsor of Swedish/Ballard Campus Redevelopment

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